


Cool Guys Like You

by howveryzoe



Category: Heathers (1988), Spring Awakening - Sheik/Sater
Genre: A bit of a drabble, Heathers AU, M/M, What is grammar?, but im tagging it anyway, hanschen is veronica, i know ilse being chandler makes no sense shhh, idk - Freeform, melchior is jd, the hernst is just kind of implied, the underage and rape is implied there's nothing here more graphic than in heathers, this was kind of shitty, what are tenses?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-20 16:58:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6017551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howveryzoe/pseuds/howveryzoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This really wasn't how Hanschen Rilow saw his junior year ending.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cool Guys Like You

He's hanging from the ceiling of his bedroom, clenching his eyes shut as his psychotic ex-boyfriend rants about mass-suicide. 

Fuck.

Hanschen Rilow had thought that he had things together. He'd spent his whole Junior and Sophmore year kissing ass and forging notes until finally Ilse Neumann had let him into her clique. She'd turned him from a greasy nobody to a somebody. He'd had boys and girls falling at his feet. An untouchable, color coded, teen angel. But paradise wasn't all it was caught up to be. He'd felt like he was choking every day he sat at the table, loved by the whole school, but why? And he wasn't allowed to talk to his best friend, Wendla Bergmann, because she was too much of a bluebird. He was at his wits end that fateful day when he wrote the school outcast, Moritz Stiefel, a fake horny note from the quarterback Georg Zirschnitz, at Ilse's request. And then he had seen him. Across the cafeteria. Beautiful, enticing, dark eyes and the hint of an exasperated smile. A face of chaos. And he had fallen right in. He'd strolled up to the devil without a second thought.

"Melchior Gabor, right?" He had said, smiling slightly.

"Guilty as charged, you one of them?" He says while licking his teeth and gesturing towards towards where Ilse stood with Thea and Ernst.

"No, I'm a free agent." Hanschen says defiantly. "May I ask you a stupid question?"

"There are no stupid questions."

"You inherit five million dollars the same day aliens land on earth and say they're gonna blow it up in three days. What do you?" He revels in the other boy's laugh, it's toothy and genuine.

"That's actually the stupidest question I've ever heard and we go to public school. But I guess I'd flip off every teacher who ever yelled at me, go into the forest alone somewhere, bring along a bottle of tequila, my guitar, and Goethe's Faust." He says, putting care into each word.

"How very." Hanschen had replied, successfully reeled in by the other boy's charms.

And that had been the beginning. After that there had been the "open door policy for assholes" comment and shooting blanks at Georg and Otto right in the middle of the cafeteria. They'd met again at the gas station, picking up corn nuts for Ilse on the way to the party. He'd been staring down at the rows of identical convenience store crap when he heard the soft teasing voice behind him and felt the warmth of the boy's breath.

"You gonna get a turbo-dog with that or something?" He says slowly.

Hanschen smiles and turns around smiles slowly, fixing his blazer and smoothing his hair carefully. "No, but if you're really good little boy, I'll let you buy me a slushie. So what brings you to the 7-11 at this time of night huh? You struck me as more of a reading poetry at one am type of guy then the gas station type."

"Well, I've been moved around my whole life, this place is the one consistency. It keeps me sane. Same food in every state and all." He explains, while Hanschen begins to chew slowly on a twizzler.

"Really? You know that thing you pulled with Georg and Otto today was pretty severe. Funny though. 'Open door policy for assholes' clever." Hanschen turns slowly to catch his reaction.

"Well, the extreme always seems to make an impression." Hanschen nods in agreement. Melchior slowly walks over to the slushie machine and Hanschen follows expectantly, already longing for the closeness of the last moment. "So did you say cherry or lime?"

"I didn't." He responds coyly. "Cherry." They stand there for a minute just smiling at each other. Thinking in strange unison that neither was aware of.

They'd strolled outside after paying. Hanschen slowly sipping his slushie trying to draw a reaction from the other boy's hungry eyes. Knowing (or at least thinking he knew) every rule of the game. 

"So what brings you to Sherwood Ohio?" Hanschen leans against Melchior's motorcycle.

"My dad's work. He runs a multi-national de-construction company. We move every month or so." 

"I'd given anything to get out of these town full of small minded singularly focused idiots but moving that much has got to be rough."

"Well, everyone's life has got static. Is your life perfect?" He raises an eyebrow and Hanschen laughs.

"Oh yeah, I'm on my way to a party at Remington University tonight. Aren't I the face of a generation?" He snarks and then jumps a little as Ilse' honks the horn. "No, my life isn't perfect. I don't really like my friends."

"I don't really like your friends either." Melchior says it frankly and Hanschen is more than just turned on by his honesty. He's so different. So far from the perfect plastic people Hanschen lives about.

"They're these people I work with and our job is too be popular and shit." 

"Maybe it's time to take a vacation." 

And from that line Hanschen was hooked. It was the perfect storm of teenage hormones that brought about his fall. The party turned into a disaster of him being propositioned, no pressured by some college asshole, which had ended with him vomiting all over Ilse Neumann's feet. A promised social execution had followed. He'd blown it. After years of playing it safe and slipping in he had ruined everything. So much for working the system and biding his time.

His diary entry from that night had been full of the word "kill" and "fuck" and it was barely legible as he scribbled and wrote and threw up a little more in his trash can. He'd chucked it at his window and like magic the head had popped up. He had gasped and clutched his robe to himself, his already bizarre night becoming even more of a whirlwind.

"This is probably dreadful etiquette and I doubt you're truly interested so I apologize for barging in like this." Melchior explained, his eyes twitching about the room.

"It's...fine. Really fine." Hanschen breathed.

"I saw you own a croquet set. Up for a match?" 

The "match of croquet" had turned into strip croquet rather fast and then intense, crazy, rolling in the wet grass of Hanschen's yard. Kissing feverishly and pulling their bodies close. Strange and hateful and exhilarating. Attempting to destroy the world with their hands, ripping and hacking away at each other. They had ended up exhausted, backs against a tree, wrapped in Melchior's coat and each other's arms. Breathing heavily and philosophizing about life and school and death. 

"I say we just skim off the cream you know? Don't try, don't work hard, don't yell or scream. Just let things be and make things work for you you know?" Melchior nods in agreeement, of course later Hanschen would find the nod a lie, and leans down to kiss him again. "But in the meantime, I'd like to see Ilse Neumann puke her guts out."

He'd meant it as a joke. Or at least half a joke. But when Melchior says "let's go for big blue here" it stops being a joke really fast. It doesn't really hit him until there she is, dark hair flying everywhere about the carpet, crashing through a coffee table. And he's the one who gave her the cup. He'd killed her.

"I can't believe this is my life! I'm going to have to send my SAT scores to San Quentin instead of Stanford oh my god." He had been hyperventilating, Melchior standing next to him, running his fingers through his hair. It had been Melchior's idea to write the suicide note. It had seemed frantic in the moment but now Hanschen wonders if it had been as planned as every other move the boy made. Just another trick to get him deeper into his net.

After the funeral, which had been frankly bizarre and as fake as everything else in Hanschen's damned existence, he'd agreed with Ernst to meet Georg and Otto on a double date. It had ended, predictably he must admit, in cow tiping and cow shit with a drunk Georg on top of Ernst in the pasture and a slightly less drunk Otto following him up a hill begging for sex.

"Get lost asshole." He had said, leaning against a tree and mourning the loss of his shoes as they're surely ruined. Uncomfortably, he had gazed out into the field and wondered just how long it would take for him to end up in his friend's position with Otto, when the blinding light of Melchior's motorcycle (always right on time) had filled his eyes. He had smiled up at him gratefully, the rescue making the night for him. He'd taken his hand, no questions asked and pulled him up on to it, smoke puffing out of from his cigarette. Hanschen would usually object to the smell but everything Melchior did seemed to make him smile lately.

"Our love is God. Let's go get a slushie." He'd said it and Hanschen had kissed him, pretending to be deaf to what the "god" line entailed. Thrilled to feel whatever this was, love, lust, anger who cared?

But he'd cared when they were in the graveyard with Georg and Otto's bodies beneath them. When they were running from the cops hand in hand, tension filling the air. They'd fucked in his car, desperately clinging to each other in the hopes of proving innocence. Hanschen had never been more scared, never more embarrassed. 

"Ich luge bullets! I am so stupid!" He had screamed when he woke up in his car, spending the night on Melchior's lap. 

They'd screamed in there for almost an hour. Ignoring the gawking students. It had led to Hanschen burning himself and Melchior leaning into light his goddamn cigarette with the burn. Led to a shouting match of "did not" "did too!" And still Hanschen had stayed with him.

He'd stayed with him through the pep rally, as Ms.Grossenbustenhalter brought them together in "unity" and as Thea hurled herself in front of the camera. He'd stayed with him that afternoon with his demonic dad making jokes that left them both reeling and feeling like shit. He'd stayed when Melchior had called the chaos great.

"Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs darling."

He's disgusted but stays to hear about his mom. About the "accident" that was her death. Of course Hanschen pities him but he can't help but think, what have I gotten myself into. And he's still there up until Melchior fires into the stereo. That is the final straw.

"That's it we're breaking up!" Hanschen yells, grabbing his bag and attempting to storm out of the room. He's stopped with Melchior's arm, swinging him roughly back down to the sofa.

"What the fuck? You can't bring them back you must know that." He says it dangerously, as if he is daring him to contradict. Hanschen refuses to see the warning in his eyes. He goes deeper in.

"I'm only trying to bring, I don't know myself back at this point!" Hanschen yells it. Implying a belief in a soul, something up till now he thought pure bullshit. Melchior grabbed his arm tight and kissed him, throwing them both onto the couch. For a moment, Hanschen gives in, letting himself forget the few morals he has. But then he is pulling the boy off of himself and standing up. Running to the door, his heart thumping for a different reason.

"And to think! There was a time I actually thought you were cool!" He spits the words, reveling in the pain it causes the other boy.

"You'll be back." He hisses it and Hanschen almost believes him. But no, he is stronger, he is tougher he can do this. And he bites down on his tongue and silences his heart and walks out. Runs to his car and drives home. 

Later he calls Wendla. Not to apologize, he can't apologize, but to see a familiar face. A beacon in the shit that has become his life. They play croquet and it's almost like the old days. Simple and happy. Wendla is the one to break it.

"Nice guys finish last Hanschen. I should know." She stares at her feet, and he touches her shoulder.

"That's not my style." Even so, he takes the shot. Because he guesses it is. He isn't a Wendla Bergmann. He's a Melchior Gabor. No fuck it, he's himself and he isn't even sure who that is anymore.

 

And then Thea comes over. Laughing about how that freak Moritz Stiefel attempted suicide. Hanschen slaps her. Actually slaps her. He apologizes of course. Grovels as usual but shit did it feel good.

And maybe he thinks, with a real suicide attempt, it's over. Melchior's reign or whatever has come to an end.

But then they hear Ernst on the radio and he know it's only getting worse.

"God has cursed me. My best friend committed suicide. My parents are getting divorced. I'm failing math. The last guy I slept with, if you can call it that, killed himself cause he was actually in love with his linebacker. And everyday on the bus to school my stomach aches and my palms are all sweaty and I'm like 'Jesus! I'm on the freaking bus again cause all my rides to school are dead.' Sometimes I just want to stop going, stop trying. Everyone seems set against me. And I-" He's crying at this point and out of pity Hanschen turns the radio off.

Thea tells everyone about Ernst. He's laughed out of Latin class and Hanschen follows him to the bathroom. Frantically refusing to lose someone else. The floor is covered in tiny yellow pills and the boy slumps to the floor in his cheerleader costume.

"What were you trying to do sleep?" Hanschen demands bitterly once he is sure the boy is safe.

"Suicide is meant to be a private thing." Ernst tells him ruefully, not meeting his eyes.

"You're so blind. You'll be another face in the US-fucking-A today? Is that what you want? To let the system beat you? To be a goddamn statistic?" Hanschen questions him.

"But what about Ilse and Georg and Otto?" Ernst asks, tears filling his huge dark eyes again.

"If everyone jumped off a bridge young man would you?" Hanschen says sitting down next to him.

"Probably." Ernst admits, laughing through his tears and places his head on Hanschen's shoulder.

"If you were happy every single day of your life you wouldn't be a human being you'd be a game show host." He tells him and wraps his arm around his shoulder.

"You wanna cut school today and go somewhere pretty?" Ernst asks, wiping a tear from his eyes.

"Yeah, ok." Hanschen says and places a kiss to his forehead lightly.

 

He hears about Thea's petition and knows something is going wrong. It isn't over, nothing good seems to ever happen to him apparently.

"Jealous much?" She says after he reacts to her saying it was Melchior's idea.

"Just be a friend for God's sake Thea! Why do you have to be such a mega bitch?" He nearly screams after failing to hit her again.

"Because I can be."

The words drive in her point. It's so dumb of course, he's become a idealistic fuck. And when Melchior comes back and takes him in his arms and kisses his neck he almost lets him take him back. Almost gives up. But no. NO.

"It's over Melchior! Grow the fuck up you idiot!" He's screaming and running out again. He should go out for track.

When he gets home from hanging out with Ernst it turns out Melchior beat him to it. His mother hands him the forged note and relays Melchior's warning of his "suicidal thoughts."

 _"Recognize the handwriting?"_ And then Hanschen knows he is dead. The hanging ken doll in his room is unnecessary. His nightmare is full of Melchior and screaming ("you're not a rebel you're fucking psychotic Gabor!") and blue light and Thea dying and finally Ilse there again. Laughing and dressed all in red and drowning him in spaghetti of all things. He wakes up gasping and knows what he has to do.

And that brings him back to faking his own suicide. The irony is not lost.

"Goddamit Hanschen!" Melchior yells sticking a cigarette in his mouth only to spit it out on to the floor. "No! No! I loved you! I mean I was coming to kill you but at least I'd have given you the chance to join me! And you would of course you would! That's what you do! Look at my amazing petition I mean, "We the students of Knochenbruch High will die. Today. Our burning bodies will provide the ultimate protest against a society that degrades us. Fuck you all." It's not really subtle darling but neither is blowing up an entire school. This would wake them up! It'll effect the generation! I mean we would show those fucks Hanschen! We could've toasted marshmallows you and I." He's crying a bit now. But with the call of Hanschen's mother he has flown from the house.

She's screaming now, after seeing his body hanging from the ceiling. Hanschen quickly unties himself and smiles at her.

"Mom? Why so tense?" Hanschen asks, hitting the bed with a thump. Ignoring her hysteria he begins to formulate a plan. 

All night he attempts to figure out what to do. He thinks about just cutting school the next day, maybe shoot a text to Wendla or Ernst to meet him somewhere. Just let it be. 

But he can't. Maybe just because he needs to see Melchior's face and let him know he beat him or because he's not pure evil. Not heartless. 

He sneaks out of bed that night and takes his father's gun from the safe in their library. His hands shake, remembering the last time he held it was in the graveyard with Otto and Georg. He had been laughing them.

His mom gives him the day off from school after his "suicide attempt" and he waits until they've all left the house for work to sneak out and into school. He's next to certain he has a death wish. The whole plan relies on the fact that Melchior still thinks he's dead, as does the whole school. So, he's next to certain its ruined when Ms.Grossenbustenhalter grabs his arm upon him entering.

"Hanschen, what happened? Melchior Gabor told me you just committed suicide?" She says, fake concern overtaking her face.

Hanschen groans and shakes his arm away. "Where is he? Where is Melchior?" He say anxiously.

"Well we need to talk. Whether to kill yourself or not is one of the most important decisions a teenager can make!" She says, condescension and hysteria lacing her tone. 

"Oh get a job!" He spits back and runs off into the crowd of students. He hides in the bathroom, repeating his plan over and over in his head, throwing up a few times. Resisting the urge to run home. 

 He exits when he hears the bell ring and is surprised to find the crowd of students all heading towards the gym. Rushing up to Anna, he taps her on her shoulder.

"Where's everybody going?" He asks, trying to remain calm.

"The gym. There's some big assembly. Why do you ask?" She says, a little unsure of why he's talking to her.

"Anna, what's under the gym?"

"The boiler room. Listen Hanschen are you okay?" She begins but he cuts her off.

"I've got to go." He says racing down the badly lit hallway and slipping past the door. His heart thuds in his chest as he sees the regular trenchcoated radical holding a duffel bag on the floor of the boiler room. He holds out his gun, trying to be as menacing as possible.

"May I see your hall pass?" Hanschen shouts, startling Melchior and causing him to turn around to where the other boy aims the gun at him.

"I should've known that loose was too noose. I mean noose to loose, goddamn you, bastard." He says smiling brightly. 

Hanschen is not smiling in the slightest.

"Like father like son huh? You crazy fuck." He spits it, trying to keep up the little facade of confidence he has left. "Okay, we're going to start by putting the bomb on the ground."

Melchior raises an eyebrow carefully and indicates towards the duffel bag he has already dropped.

"Uh-I knew that." Hanschen says, hyperventilating. "So, put your hands on your head."

"You didn't say Simon says darling." Melchior responds and before Hanschen can even utter a what he is running at him with his knife, knocking the gun out of his hand. Quickly Hanschen struggles to escape his grasp, but finds his smaller shoulders thrown against the wall and his head bashed, repeatedly against a pipe. His vision blurs and his head rings. Now, Melchior is kissing him again, his lips tasting like blood and he is kicking and struggling and pushing him off. Eventually he drops him to the floor, where he lies crumpled and bleeding. Melchior runs off to take care of the bomb.

He thinks, once again, about giving up. Just lying there and waiting till Melchior left the building to run out. Save himself and screw everyone else. Or maybe to just pull the fucking fire alarm. But no, he's going to beat this bastard if it kills him. Scrambling on to his knees he grabs the gun and runs after him, limping slightly. He again aims the gun at the other boy. The trigger bomb is ticking, counting down seconds quickly, more quickly than Hanschen had expected. He can't believe that this is how he's going to die. No way.

"Do you think just because you started this you can end this?" Melchior says, standing up from adjusting the bomb. "You're no better than me, in fact maybe you're worse. You're not a hero Hanschen Rilow, you're just a vapid clone looking for a little attention. You want power just as much as I do."

"I will fucking kill you. I swear to God! How do I stop this goddamn bomb asshole?" Hanschen says throw grated teeth, ignoring the insults.

"Fuck you!" Melchior yells with a laugh, raising his middle finger. And before he knows it Hanschen has shot it off. They both gasp, and the boy clutches his finger, watching the blood flood all over his hand.

"It's over Melchior, please help me stop this!" Hanschen shouts, trying not to look at his handy work.

"You want a clean slate just as much as I do! So maybe I'm killing everyone in a school because I'm an idealistic fuck who nobody loves but let's face it! The only place different social types can genuinely get along, is in heaven." Melchior says, making a last ditch effort to sway the other boy but at this point his pleas fall on deaf ears.

"Which button do I press?" He says, each word labored and his breathing heavy. 

"The red one. Really, people are going to look at the ashes of this school and say there's a school that self destructed not because society didn't care. But because that school was society! Way to say fuck you to the parentocracy huh?" 

"Which red button?" He spits the last word.

"The middle one! If that's what you really want." Melchior says, letting his words slip into his brain.

"You know what I want, babe?" Hanschen says, sarcasm slipping into his tone.

"What?!" Melchior screeches.

Hanschen shoots him again, closing his eyes as he does. Instantly, Melchior rams his knife into the bomb, stopping the timer and saving them both.

"Cool guys like you out of my life." He says with a triumphant smile. Quickly he makes his way out of the boiler room and into the cheering gym, the unaware students barely noticing him.

He slips outside into the crisp May sun, leaning against the door, exhausted. Melchior is not far behind him. That same soft voice creeping into his ear like always.

"Color me impressed. You really fucked me up pretty bad. You know you've got power Hanschen. Damn, power I didn't know you had." Bitter admiration colors his words.

Hanschen doesn't know what to say. Doesn't really get it yet, until that is, Melchior opens his coat to reveal the bomb duck taped to his stomach. "The slate is clean." Melchior tells him, pressing one more kiss to the shorter boy's forehead, staining it with blood, before walking down the steps slowly, clutching his stomach. Hanschen watches, gasping, at a loss for words.

"Just a fun exercise here, pretend I did blow up the school? All the schools. Now that you're dead, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?" Melchior calls up to him. Hanschen feels, despite himself, hot tears spilling down his dirty cheeks. The words "don't do it" seem to crawl up his throat but instead he places a cigarette in it. The other boy extends his arms, eyes closed tight.

Hanschen laughs and then-

Boom.

He's standing alone now, his cigarette lit triumphantly, covered in soot his hair singed and darkened, his face covered in ash. He takes out his cigarette and breaths into the air. His ears ring and everything sounds muffled.

He makes his way back into the building, ignoring the student's stares. Ernst tries to run towards him, saying something frantic like.

"Oh my God, people were saying you killed yourself, Hanschen!" But he barely hears him making his way towards where Thea stood in the center of the hallway. She places her hand on her hip and gawks at him.

"Hanschen, you look like hell." She says eyeing him up and down with disdain.

"Yeah well, I just got back." He explains, smiling a little. She looks at him in confusion and he pulls her in, grabbing Ilse's red scrunchie form her hair. He slips it onto his own dark ponytail. "Thea my love! There's a new sheriff in town." He kisses her cheek, leaving a soot covered kiss on it.

Running down the hallway, he reaches Moritz, the boy staring sadly out the window.

"Heya, Moritz! My date for the prom kind of blew me off, I was wondering if you weren't you might want to rent a movie and eat some popcorn together?" He says.

"I'd like that." The messy haired boy replies, a hint of a smile tracing his lips.

Hanschen smiles back.

He won.


End file.
